A Response to "Where Do We Go From Here?"

By Stephen DownesMar 01, 2000

This article published as A Response to "Where Do We Go From Here?" in The Technology Source March/April, 2000 online Mar 01, 2000. [Link] Type: A - Publications in Refereed Journals [List all Publications]

Gary BrownÃ¢â¬â¢s Critical Reading article, "Where Do We Go from Here?" (2000) is a nicely stated
expression of a sentiment that probably has widespread currency. It is precisely because
of this fact that his argument is troubling.

Taking the Chronicle of Higher Education as his starting point, indeed, as his
"bellwether of the academy," Brown examines online learning from a pedagogical
perspective and asks, pointedly, "How do these products improve instruction? Where is
the articulation of the critical marketing angle for a product that helps faculty promote
deeper learning?" Of course, one does not find the answers to such questions in the Chronicle.
But this is hardly the fault of the discipline. My own estimation is that the Chronicle
is probably not a particularly good source; most of what is happening in online learning
is happening outside the traditional circles typically reported by the Chronicle.

My own response (1999)
in a Chronicle forum to a recent article is a case in point. Critics of online
learning James Perley and Denise Marie Tanguay (1999), in an
article printed by the Chronicle, have endorsed the attitude that the
professorÃ¢â¬âand only the professorÃ¢â¬âshould be the prime determinant of content and
pedagogy. I ask, "One wonders what gives a tenured professor a unique insight into
teaching at all. Course packs, for all their weaknesses, have at least the steady hand of
a professional educator to guide them in their content and delivery."

A sentiment similar to those of Perley and Tanguay is expressed by Mathieu Deflem (1999) (a cause celÃ¯Â¿Â½bre
trumpeted by Florence OlsenÃ¢â¬â¢s [1999] article in the Chronicle).
In a position paper posted on his own Web site, he even goes so far as to say of online
learning that "This form of intrusion goes completely against our position as
educators for which we claim sovereign rights and obligations."

If we look at education from the perspective of the solitary professor, a point of view
these authors are taking, then not much is happening from the point of pedagogy or even
content. But looked at in a wider context, where we see online learning taking the form of
team-produced and team-taught multimedia productions, then significant changes are
occurring, if only because the actors are changing.

For example, I did a search for "constructivism" on the Chronicle site
(the free site, because I don't want to purchase a subscription) that returned zero
matches. But as evidenced by startups like UNext,
constructivism is emerging as the dominant paradigm of online learning. Now I am no
prophet of the One True Faith (unlike, say, Alex Riegler [1999]) but I do
consider the shift in emphasis to student-centered learning to be of pedagogical
significance.

I think the basis in the Chronicle's account of the online learning phenomenon
represents a certain bias. While it probably represents the collective voices of tenured
academia teaching as lone eagles in front of ever larger classrooms, it does not represent
the many voices of people using new technology in new ways, and as such misses an
important opportunity to respond to the pedagogical question at all.

Olsen, F. (1999, October 6). Armed with a Web site and links, a professor takes on
lecture-notes companies. The Chronicle of Higher Education Online. Retrieved 28
January 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://chronicle.com/free/99/10/99100601t.htm

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